This week’s Booking Through Thursday: If you’re anything like me, one of your favorite reasons to read is for the story. Not for the character development and interaction. Not because of the descriptive, emotive powers of the writer. Not because of deep, literary meaning hidden beneath layers of metaphor. (Even though those are all good things.) No … it’s because you want to know what happens next?
Or, um, is it just me?
I have to say for the most part, it’s true: that why I read is to see what happens next. Otherwise, why would I be reading a tome like Great Expectations? I want to know what is going to happen next for Pip in this story. However, it is not always true of every book that I read and is not the sole reason I read a book, even one like Great Expectations.
One extreme example of not reading to see what happens next is my reading of the Liturgy of the Hours each day. I certainly don’t read to find out what is going to happen next. Basically, like the Bible, it’s all going to turn out all right in the end (well, for some anyway :) So why do I read it? If I wanted to be all uber-holy, I could say it was because I want to get closer to God, which in part is true. However, that’s not it either. In this case, for me, reading Scripture and what saints who have gone before us have written is how I center myself for the day in recognizing there is something out there beyond me (but that also can be inside of me if I allow the grace of God to so enter me, which doesn’t happen often enough).
Another less extreme example is my daily reading of Dr. George Sheehan on Getting Fit and Feeling Great: Three Volumes In One, How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day, Running and Being and This Running Life by George A. Sheehan, M.D., which I have started recently. So far, I’m up to Chapter 4 of the first book. I’m not reading this either to find out what happens next, but I am reading in the hope that I can gain a little insight daily from the late runner/philosopher (which I believe I am) that I can carry through into my living it out.
I could cite many other examples, but time is running down and it’s almost Friday here. So for now, this is my answer, incomplete, unfinished: not surprisingly in keeping with my online moniker.
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4 Comments
August 29, 2008 at 9:12 am
I truly leave the what happens next part for whodunnits! No story to speak off but still engrossing!
Wot say!
Booking through stories
August 29, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Unfinished, I love that ‘Stuff White People Like’ blog, but sometimes it hits so close to home, it hurts. You can call me Blake by the way…or just Jessica’s brother. I’m good with both.
Good luck with ‘Great Expectations.’ Wading through that book is one of the most difficult reads I’ve ever read.
August 30, 2008 at 2:06 am
I agree. I think we are drawn to certain books for different reasons, and not always because we want to know what happens next. Some books don’t lend themselves to that.
August 30, 2008 at 4:41 am
What happens next will always be my primary reason for reading, but I do like my what happens next to be presented well. Fill it out with clichés and impossible characters and I’m very likely to put it down.